Posted by Webmaster on May 8, 2014 in Uninor | Comments Off on Telenor India / Uninor has 16% 2G Data Subscribers

Uninor, the Indian Subsidiary of Telenor is witnessing promising trends in data growth and is now focused on growing data usage. Currently, nearly 16% of its subscribers are active data users, and it plans to continue offering data on the 2G platform as 3G data usage is limited in India.

Telenor India reported revenue of INR 9.3bn, up 8.7% QoQ, led by healthy 13.6% traffic growth on the back of 2.5 mn subscriber additions and a 4.8% MOU increase. MOU has grown 50% over the past 10 quarters, driven by a 27% price cut during the same period. Thus, the company’s strategy has been to drive traffic and improve capacity utilization by undercutting voice offerings. During the quarter, RPM reduced by 4.5% to INR 0.23, nearly 37-38% below Airtel and Idea’s voice RPM of about INR 0.37.

Telenor India’s six circles together contribute about 37% of the industry pie. It has been consistently gaining market share in these circles, with about a 5.7% market share in the December 2013 quarter. Further, it caters to about 35-48% of revenue contribution for Bharti, Idea and Vodafone, holding high relevance. AP, Bihar, Gujarat and Maharashtra are top circles for Bharti, Vodafone and Idea.

Telenor India has a target to redeploy 5,000 cell sites in this year from closed circles to the existing circles and added 1,036 cell sites during the 1st quarter, with about INR 1,185mn in capex. In the previous quarter management had highlighted that its exit run-rate reached break-even, and it woud invest USD 50mn in capex in redeploying 5,000 cell sites. Telenor has reached the break-even target under its peak funding of INR 155bn. Management made a strong statement that it is now taking the lead position in the six circles. Telenor has improved market share by about 50-100bp on a quarterly basis in the past 3-4quarters. These six circles represent 35-45% of total revenue contribution and about a 25-30% market share of large telcos, thus holding high relevance